How to lose weight just by walking?

Recent scientific research has shown that simply increasing your daily step count brings about multifold health benefits and reduces our risk of all-cause mortality! But how can we utilise this simple activity to lose weight? The first thing we need to understand is that when you exercise, you only spend a small portion of your time and burn a small amount of energy during your workout period.

Conversely, if you are moving throughout the course of the day, you end up burning more calories. Now multiply each day’s efforts over a 7 day period. You’ll realise that the amount of calories you burn just while walking is way more than what you burn during your workout sessions! Here are a few ways in which you can burn more calories throughout the day with the help of walking that can help you lose weight:

Whenever you get the opportunity to walk, try to walk at more than 60% of your max effort rather than leisurely strolling from point A to point B. With that said, while walking does help you increase your calorie expenditure of the day, it will help you lose weight only if you ensure that you have achieved a calorie deficit for the day. This can only happen once you start monitoring your diet.

“The more your body works against gravity, the more effort you will have to put in, thereby helping you burn more calories in that short period of time. Keep the protein content high in each of your meals, and focus on having high volume, low calorie foods such as whole foods, meats, fruits, vegetables, etc which help you achieve a calorie deficit,” Miten Kakaiya, fitness coach and founder of Miten Says Kakiya.

Simple ways to do that include - walking while you talk on the phone (or during outdoor meetings), parking your vehicle a little away from your office/grocery store so that you can walk that extra distance, and taking 10 minute walks after your meals, among many others.

Also Read: Weight loss: Study finds HIIT training can help melt belly fat quicker

Stop carrying things from point A to point B in one trip. Instead, utilise this opportunity to get in extra steps by making multiple trips. For example, to carry things from one room to the other, take one thing at a time, and make it a multi-trip affair.

One can only improve the things one tracks. So while you may track yourself and find that you are walking just 5k steps in a day, this gives you the opportunity to set goals for the subsequent day or the subsequent week. Over time, gradually increase your daily step count by walking a little more than you did the previous week.